The Role of Brit-Am Notions in Helping Create the State of Israel in the Past and Present.
British Zion-1.
13 January 2025, 13 Tevet, 5785.
Contents:
1. British and Dutch Identifications (in the idealistic sense) with Ancient Israel.
2. Early Christian Zionists (a, b, c, d).
Quora Extracts.
3. What was the Balfour Declaration: History & Facts
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1. British and Dutch Identifications (in the idealistic sense) with Ancient Israel.
Extract from:
Zionism and the Hebrew Bible: from religious holiness to national sanctity
Yitzhak Conforti
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00263206.2023.2204516#abstract
In the early modern period, many western countries drew parallels between their own countries and the national model described in the Bible. For example, the Dutch nationalist movement identified itself with the 'Children of Israel'. Further, Simon Schama described many expressions of Dutch patriotism that drew on Bible stories. He pointed out that during the seventeenth century, the Dutch allusion to the Hebrew Bible, which 'struck again and again, was meant to assure the Netherlanders that they were the heroes of the new scripture: the latter-day Maccabees'. Early modern England was another country that demonstrated a strong affinity with the biblical model. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, British leaders described their national identity as 'the new Israelite nation' and a true 'Chosen People'... "a Nation of Prophets, of Sages, and Worthies".
After the Reformation in the sixteenth century, several nation-states developed in Western European countries. In England, the Netherlands, and other European states, the Hebrew Bible served as a model for shaping these states and their national identities. The influence of the Hebrew Bible was also evident among early European settlers in North America as well as during the American Revolution. In the early modern age, the political thought of the leading European thinkers was deeply influenced by the national model presented in the Hebrew Bible. This approach was evident in the work of political philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, John Selden, and Baruch Spinoza.Thomas Hobbes, for example, asserted that the only Kingdom of God that existed historically was the republic of the ancient Israelites. The use of the biblical model enabled these thinkers to outline the model for a concrete historical state, instead of an eternal divine kingdom.The ancient Hebrew republic was viewed as a historical case that could be applied to other nation-states.
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2. Early Christian Zionists (a, b, c).
Quora Extracts:
(a) Is it true that Christian Zionism preceded Jewish Zionism?
https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-Christian-Zionism-preceded-Jewish-Zionism
Handala
Brit-Am Note: the following notes are extracts from an answer by "Handala" to the above question. It is of interest to us because of the facts he lists and NOT because of how he aswered the question for which we have our own answer:
See Is it true that Christian Zionism preceded Jewish Zionism?
https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-Christian-Zionism-preceded-Jewish-Zionism/answer/Yair-Davidiy
Here are the notes by "Handala."
Lives in Palestine (1948 - present)
. Thomas Brightman, an English clergyman in the sixteenth century:
"Shall they return to Jerusalem again? There is nothing more certain: the prophets do everywhere confirm it and beat about it." 1
Brightman was not only hoping for the fulfillment of a divine promise; he, like so many others before him, wished for the Jews to convert to Christianity or flee Europe entirely.
Henry Oldenburg, a German theologian and natural philosopher, wrote a century later:
"if the occasion present itself amid changes to which human affairs are liable, [the Jews] may even raise their empire anew, and, God may elect them a second time."2
In the second half of the eighteenth century, Charles-Joseph of Lign, an Austro-Hungarian field marshal, stated:
"I believe that the Jew is not able to assimilate, and that he will constantly constitute a nation within a nation, wherever he may be. The simplest thing to do would in my opinion be returning to them their homeland, from which they were driven."3
Around the same time, -Rene de Chateaubriand, a famous French writer and politician, declared the Jews to be "the legitimate masters of Judea." He influenced Napoleon Bonaparte, who hoped to enlist the assistance of Palestine's Jewish community and other groups of peoples in his attempt to occupy the Middle East at the turn of the nineteenth century. He assured them of their "return to Palestine" and the establishment of a state.
"The soil of Palestine only awaits for the return of her banished children, and the application of industry, commensurate with agricultural capabilities, to burst once more into universal luxuriance, and be all that she ever was in the days of Solomon."5
Thus wrote John Lindsay, a Scottish peer and military commander.
David Hartley, an English philosopher, echoed this sentiment when he wrote:
"It is probable that the Jews will be reinitiated in Palestine".6
John Adams (1735-1826), the American president, stated:
"I really wish the Jews again in Judea as an independent nation."7
Lord Shaftesbury (1801-85), a prominent British politician and reformer who campaigned vigorously for a Jewish homeland in Palestine... His justifications for a stronger British presence in Palestine were religious as well as strategic.8
This perilous combination of religious zeal and reformist zeal would lead from Shaftesbury's efforts in the mid-nineteenth century to the 1917 Balfour Declaration. Shaftesbury recognized that simply supporting the return of the Jews would not be sufficient; Britain would need to actively assist the Jews in their initial colonization. He asserted that such an alliance should begin by assisting Jews in traveling to Ottoman Palestine with material aid. He persuaded the Anglican bishopric center and cathedral in Jerusalem to contribute to the project's early funding. This would almost certainly not have occurred without Shaftesbury's successful recruitment of his father-in-law, Lord Palmerston, Britain's foreign minister and later Prime Minister. Shaftesbury wrote the following in his diary entry for August 1, 1838:
"Dined with Palmerston. After dinner left alone with him. Propounded my schemes, which seems to strike his fancy. He asked questions and readily promised to consider it [the program to help the Jews to return to Palestine and take it over]. How singular is the order of Providence. Singular, if estimated by man's ways. Palmerston had already been chosen by God to be an instrument of good to His ancient people, to do homage to their inheritance, and to recognize their rights without believing their destiny. It seems he will yet do more. Though the motive be kind, it is not sound. I am forced to argue politically, financially, commercially. He weeps not, like his Master, over Jerusalem, nor prays that now, at last, she may put on her beautiful garments."9
As a first step, Shaftesbury convinced Palmerston to appoint William Young as the first British vice-consul in Jerusalem. Young was a fellow restorationist (believer in the restoration of Palestine to the Jews). He later wrote in his diary:
"What a wonderful event it is! The ancient City of the people of God is about to resume a place among the nations; and England is the first of the gentile kingdoms that ceases to 'tread her down.'"10
A year later, in 1839, Shaftesbury authored a thirty-page article entitled "State and Restauration (sic) of the Jews," in The London Quarterly Review, in which he predicted a new era for God's chosen people. He insisted on the following:
"the Jews must be encouraged to return in yet greater numbers and become once more the husbandman of Judea and Galilee. though admittedly a stiff-necked, dark hearted people, and sunk in moral degradation, obduracy, and ignorance of the Gospel, [they are] not only worthy of salvation but also vital to Christianity's hope of salvation."11
Palmerston was persuaded by Shaftesbury's gentle lobbying. Palmerston, too, became an advocate for Jewish restoration for political reasons rather than religious ones. Among the other considerations in his deliberations was the:
"view that the Jews could be useful in buttressing the collapsing Ottoman Empire, thus helping to accomplish the key object of British foreign policy in the area."12
Palmerston wrote to the British ambassador in Istanbul on August 11, 1840, expressing his belief that allowing Jews to return to Palestine would benefit both the Ottomans and Britain. Ironically, the restoration of the Jews was viewed as critical to preserving the status quo and averting the Ottoman Empire's disintegration. Palmerston expressed the following:
"There exists at the present time among the Jews dispersed over Europe, a strong notion that the time is approaching when their nation is to return to Palestine . It would be of manifest importance to the Sultan to encourage the Jews to return and to settle in Palestine because the wealth which they would bring with them would increase the resources of the Sultan's dominions; and the Jewish people, if returning under the sanction and protection and at the invitation of the Sultan, would be a check upon any future evil designs of Mohamet Ali or his successor, I have to instruct Your Excellency strongly to recommend [the Turkish government] to hold out every just encouragement to the Jews of Europe to return to Palestine."13
Mohamet Ali, more commonly referred to as Muhammad Ali, was the governor of Egypt during the first half of the nineteenth century who seceded from the Ottoman Empire. Palmerston wrote this letter to his ambassador in Istanbul following a decade in which the Egyptian ruler came dangerously close to deposing the sultan. The notion that Jewish wealth exported to Palestine would fortify the Ottoman Empire against internal and external enemies demonstrates how Zionism was linked to anti-Semitism, British imperialism, and theology.
A few days after Lord Palmerston's letter was published, a lead article in The Times called for a plan 'to plant the Jewish people in the land of their fathers,' claiming that such a plan was under 'serious political consideration' and praising Shaftesbury as the author of the plan, which it argued was 'practical and statesmanlike.'13 Lady Palmerston concurred with her husband's position.
To a friend, she wrote:
"We have on our side the fanatical and religious elements, and you know what a following they have in this country. They are absolutely determined that Jerusalem and the whole of Palestine shall be reserved for the Jews to return to; this is their only longing to restore the Jews."14
As a result, the Earl of Shaftesbury was referred to as:
"The leading proponent of Christian Zionism in the nineteenth century and the first politician of stature to attempt to prepare the way for Jews to establish a homeland in Palestine."15
Between 1845 and 1863, Finn was stationed in Jerusalem. Later Israeli historians have lauded him for assisting Jews in settling in their ancestral homeland, and his memoirs have been translated into Hebrew. He is not the only historical figure to have appeared in both a pantheon in one nation and a rogues' gallery in another nation. Finn despised Islam in general and the Jerusalem notables in particular. He never learned to speak Arabic and communicated with the local Palestinian population through an interpreter, which did nothing to improve his relationship with them.
Finn was aided by the establishment of the Anglican bishopric in Jerusalem in 1841, led by Michael Solomon Alexander (a convert from Judaism), and by the 1843 inauguration of Christ Church, the first Anglican church in Jerusalem, near Jaffa Gate.
Although these institutions eventually developed a strong affinity for Palestinian self-determination, they initially backed Finn's proto-Zionist aspirations. Finn worked harder than any other European to establish a permanent Western presence in Jerusalem, organizing the acquisition of land and real estate for missionaries, commercial interests, and government entities.
The German Temple Pietist movement (later known as the Templers) was a vital link between these early, primarily British, Christian Zionist buds and Zionism. They were active in Palestine from the 1860s until the outbreak of World War I. The Pietist movement developed out of Germany's Lutheran movement, which spread throughout the world, including to North America (where its influence on the early settler colonialism is felt to this very day). Around the 1860s, it developed an interest in Palestine. In 1861, the Temple Society was founded by two German clergymen, Christoph Hoffman and Georg David Hardegg. They maintained strong ties to the Pietist movement in Wurttemberg, Germany, but developed their own strategies for advancing their brand of Christianity. For them, rebuilding a Jewish temple in Jerusalem was a necessary step in God's plan of redemption and forgiveness.More importantly, they were convinced that by settling in Palestine, they would hasten the Messiah's second coming.17 While noteveryone in their respective churches and national organizations approved of their particular interpretation of Pietism in Palestine, seniormembers of the Royal Prussian court and several Anglican theologians in the United Kingdom enthusiastically supported their dogma.
As the Temple movement gained prominence, it was persecuted by the majority of Germany's established church. However, they took their ideas to a more practical level and settled in Palestine, fighting with one another and adding new members along the way. They established their first colony on Mount Carmel in Haifa in 1866 and quickly spread throughout the country. At the turn of the twentieth century, the warming relationship between Kaiser Wilhelm II and the sultan bolstered their settlement project. The Templers remained in Palestine during the British Mandate until 1948, when the new Jewish state expelled them.
The Templers' colonies and settlement methods were modeled after by early Zionists. While German historian Alexander Scholch coined the term 'The Quiet Crusade' to describe the Templers' colonization efforts, the early Zionist colonies established from 1882 on were anything but quiet.18 By the time the Templers arrived in Palestine, Zionism had already established itself as a significant political force in Europe. In a nutshell, Zionism was a movement that asserted that the problems of Europe's Jews could be resolved by colonizing Palestine and establishing a Jewish state there.These ideas germinated in the 1860s throughout Europe, spurred on by the Enlightenment, the 1848 'Spring of Nations,' and, later, socialism. Zionism was transformed into a political project by Theodor Herzl's visions in response to a particularly heinous wave of anti-Jewish persecution in Russia in the late 1870s and early 1880s, as well as the rise of anti-Semitic nationalism in western Europe (where the infamous Dreyfus trial revealed how deeply rooted anti-Semitism was in French and German society).
Zionism became an internationally recognized movement as a result of Herzl's efforts and those of other like-minded Jewish leaders.Initially acting independently, a group of Eastern European Jews developed similar ideas about resolving the Jewish question in Europe, without waiting for international recognition. They began settling in Palestine in 1882, after preparing the ground in their home countries through communal work. They are referred to as the First Aliyah in Zionist jargon, the first wave of Zionist immigration that lasted until 1904. The second wave (1905-14) was distinct in that it was dominated by frustrated communists and socialists who saw Zionism not only as a solution to the Jewish problem but also as a vehicle for the propagation of communism and socialism in Palestine. However, the majority of both waves chose to settle in Palestinian towns, with only a minority attempting to cultivate land purchased from absentee Arab landowners, initially relying on Jewish industrialists in Europe for support before seeking a more self-sufficient economic existence.
Recently, we gained access to an even more exhaustive analysis, written in 1939 but lost for many years before resurfacing in 2013. This is the work of British journalist J. M. N Jeffries, Palestine: The Reality, which spans over 700 pages and explains the circumstances surrounding the Balfour Declaration.21 It elucidates who in the British admiralty, army, and government was working on the declaration and why, based on Jeffries' personal connections and access to a wide variety of no longer-extant documents. It appears that the pro-Zionist Christians in his story were far more enthusiastic about the idea of British sponsorship of the colonization process in Palestine than the Zionists themselves.
Shaftesbury, Finn, Balfour, and Lloyd George all supported the idea, believing it would help Britain establish a foothold in Palestine. This became irrelevant after the British occupied Palestine by force and were forced to decide whether the land was Jewish or Palestinian, a question it could never properly answer and thus had to defer to others to resolve following three decades of colonialism and oppression of the indigenous Palestinian people.
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(b) Is it true that Christian Zionism preceded Jewish Zionism?
https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-Christian-Zionism-preceded-Jewish-Zionism
Benny Beit-Hallahmi
In 1585, an Anglican clergyman, Thomas Brightman, called on his fellow Britons to work for the return of Jews to Palestine, thus eventually bringing about the Second Coming. It was also noted that such a development would aid in prevailing over Moslem and Catholic interests. In addition to Restoration, a Protestant (often British) dream, there were several specific schemes which involved taking over the territory of Palestine through a political alliance with Jews.
... In his book, Du Rappel des Juifs (1643), Isaac de La Peyre re (1594-1676), a French Calvinist theologian (possibly descended from Marranos) argued that the Messiah was coming and that Zion would be rebuilt with the help of France's king.
In 1749, the British philosopher David Hartley published the following rationale for Jewish independence in Palestine:
'The Jews are yet a distinct people from all the nations amongst which they reside. They seem therefore reserved by Providence for some such signal favour, after they have suffered the due chastisement.'
'They have no inheritance of land in any country. Their professions are chiefly money and finances. They may therefore transfer themselves with the greater facility to Palestine.'
'They are treated with contempt and harshness, and sometimes with great cruelty, by the nations among whom they sojourn. They must therefore be the more ready to return to their own land.'
'They carry on a correspondence with each other throughout the whole world, and consequently must both know when circumstances begin to favor their return, and be able to concert measures with one another concerning it.
'A great part of them speak and write the Rabbinical Hebrew, as well as the language of the country where they reside. They are therefore, as far as relates to themselves, actually possessed of a universal language and character; which is a circumstance that may facilitate their return beyond what can well be imagined (Hartley, 1749/1834, pp. 553-554).
John Adams, second President of the United States, wrote in 1825: 'I really wish the Jews again in Judea, an independent nation . . . once restored to an independent government, and no longer persecuted, they would soon wear away some of the asperities and peculiarities of their character . . .' (quoted in Sokolow, 1919, p. 59). Even in Czarist Russia, members of the Decemberist conspiracy, one of the first groups to harbor revolutionary ideas, proposed a Jewish state in Asia Minor or 'the Orient,' if Russian Jews were not ready to assimilate.
Another Zionist historian states:
'One may say that the earliest Zionists were Christian Zionists; and, moreover, until late in the nineteenth century the long succession of Christian Zionist projects met with no significant Zionist awakening among the Jews\ (Halpern, 1969, p. 251).
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(c) Marc Lipshitz
Herzl is seen as the father of Modern Zionism though there were a few before him advocating a Jewish state, Moses Hess and Rabbi Kalischer both saw the establishment of a Jewish state as necessary, Hess from a secular POV and Kalischer from an Orthodox Jewish POV. The first to found an organisation and start the establishment of settlements in Israel was Leon Pinsker (Yehudah Leib Pinsker) established the Hovevei Tzion ("Friends of Zion"), which established the first new Jewish agricultural towns of of Rishon, Letziyon, Rehovot, Zichron Ya'akov, etc. during the 1880s. None of these movements got the global attention and critical political mass Herzl achieved, leaving him seen as the father of modern Zionism
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(d) Handala
Is it true that Christian Zionism preceded Jewish Zionism?
https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-Christian-Zionism-preceded-Jewish-Zionism
We know that Europeans gentiles wrote and talked and thought about a Jewish state in Palestine for centuries (see Halpern, 1969; Sokolow, 1919).
The basic Zionist idea, that of creating a Jewish homeland in Palestine, preceded Napoleon's time and appeared most prominently through the religious idea of Restoration. In sixteenth and seventeenth century Britain, what was known as Restorationism proclaimed that the return of the Jews to Palestine would be part of mankind's redemption.
In 1585, an Anglican clergyman, Thomas Brightman, called on his fellow Britons to work for the return of Jews to Palestine, thus eventually bringing about the Second Coming. It was also noted that such a development would aid in prevailing over Moslem and Catholic interests. In addition to Restoration, a Protestant (often British) dream, there were several specific schemes which involved taking over the territory of Palestine through a political alliance with Jews.
The threshold of Zionism was being crossed by numerous European visionaries, guided by both religious ideas and secular imperial designs. In his book, Du Rappel des Juifs (1643), Isaac de La Peyre re (1594-1676), a French Calvinist theologian (possibly descended from Marranos) argued that the Messiah was coming and that Zion would be rebuilt with the help of France's king.
Recognizing Jews as a separate, unique, nation was also becoming more common. In 1749, the British philosopher David Hartley published the following rationale for Jewish independence in Palestine:
'The Jews are yet a distinct people from all the nations amongst which they reside. They seem therefore reserved by Providence for some such signal favour, after they have suffered the due chastisement.
'They have no inheritance of land in any country. Their professions are chiefly money and finances. They may therefore transfer themselves with the greater facility to Palestine.
' They are treated with contempt and harshness, and sometimes with great cruelty, by the nations among whom they sojourn. They must therefore be the more ready to return to their own land.
'They carry on a correspondence with each other throughout the whole world, and consequently must both know when circumstances begin to favor their return, and be able to concert measures with one another concerning it.
'A great part of them speak and write the Rabbinical Hebrew, as well as the language of the country where they reside. They are therefore, as far as relates to themselves, actually possessed of a universal language and character; which is a circumstance that may facilitate their return beyond what can well be imagined (Hartley, 1749/1834, pp. 553-554).
John Adams, second President of the United States, wrote in 1825: 'I really wish the Jews again in Judea, an independent nation . . . once restored to an independent government, and no longer persecuted, they would soon wear away some of the asperities and peculiarities of their character . . .' (quoted in Sokolow, 1919, p. 59). Even in Czarist Russia, members of the Decemberist conspiracy, one of the first groups to harbor revolutionary ideas, proposed a Jewish state in Asia Minor or 'the Orient,' if Russian Jews were not ready to assimilate.
In his History of Zionism (1919), which remains a good source even today, Nahum Sokolow, a leading Zionist historian and politician, describes how Christian Zionism preceded any Jewish version.
Another Zionist historian states:
'One may say that the earliest Zionists were Christian Zionists; and, moreover, until late in the nineteenth century the long succession of Christian Zionist projects met with no significant Zionist awakening among the Jews' (Halpern, 1969, p. 251).
Non-Jewish Zionism had two sources: either religious dreams about hastening the Second Coming through the restoration of the Jews to the Holy Land, or imperialist dreams of establishing a European beachhead in the East (Hyamson, 1918; Sokolow, 1919). As the nineteenth century wore on, there were fewer visionaries and more imperial planners who read maps rather than scriptures.
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3. What was the Balfour Declaration: History & Facts
https://aish.com/the-balfour-declaration-5-things-you-need-to-know/?utm_source
Extracts:
On November 2, 1917, Britain's Foreign Secretary, Lord Balfour, wrote a public letter to Lord Rothschild, asking that he bring it to the attention of the international Jewish community.
His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home of the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.
First, a little background. In 1916, in the midst of war, Britain and France signed a secret document agreeing that if they managed to conquer the Holy Land from the Ottomans, they would partition the land fairly. This was known as the Sykes Picot Agreement, named after the British diplomat Sir Mark Sykes and Francois Georges-Picot.
The Sykes-Picot Agreement was almost immediately unpopular. When the Bolsheviks seized power in November 1917 they published the secret agreement, outraged at its content. In Britain, David Lloyd George became Prime Minister in late 1916, and felt Sykes-Picot favored the French; he charged Sir Sykes with renegotiating the agreement.
Sykes turned to a leading Zionist, a Hebrew-language journalist named Nahum Sokolov, for help. ....
With his help, a consensus among the Allies of World War I emerged calling for a Jewish homeland in the Land of Israel. Pope Benedict said he believed it was the will of God that the Jews establish a home in Israel, and added 'Yes, yes, I believe we shall be good neighbors!'
In France, Jules Cambon, France's Foreign Minister, expressed his country's firm support for a Jewish state. In what became known as the Chambon Letter, France asserted that:
(I)t would be a deed of justice and of reparation to assist, by the protection of the Allied Powers, in the renaissance of the Jewish nationality in that land from which the people of Israel were exiled so many centuries ago.
In Washington, President Wilson faced a quandary: Zionism was immensely unpopular in the State Department but its justice appealed to the President. In mid-October 1916, as the Balfour Declaration was being crafted, Pres. Wilson called Col. Edward House, his foreign affairs advisor into his office and asked him to discreetly let his British counterpart know of his official support.
Thus, in November 1917, when the Balfour Declaration was issued, it was part of a broad coalition: a statement on behalf of the leading democracies of the day.